RedPhone Beta (for Android)

By Max Eddy

Owning a smartphone means opening yourself up to new attacks on your privacy, but it also means having the ability to fight back. RedPhone Beta for Android is a smart and free app that lets you make and receive encrypted voice calls to other RedPhone users.

RedPhone Beta was originally developed by the famed security researcher Moxie Marlinspike, and was snatched up by Twitter when he joined the company in 2011. While briefly unavailable, it has returned as an open source project.

The first time you start up RedPhone, the app will prompt you to register your phone number by tapping a button. And then you're done; that's it. RedPhone doesn't ask for passwords, logins, or even for users to create an account. The app is designed with privacy in mind, so it requires as little from you as it can.

Secure Calling in RedPhone Beta
Once registered, users have two options for making encrypted calls. The first is to use the RedPhone app itself, which accesses your phone's contacts list, recent calls, and favorite contacts. There is, noticeably, no dialer pad to enter a number. The stripped-down UI ?is likely by design, as one of the perks of RedPhone Beta is that it seamlessly integrates into the Android dialer?which is the second way to place a RedPhone call. Launch the built-in phone app as normal and dial a number. If the person you're calling has RedPhone Beta installed, then a dialog prompt will give you the option to make a secure call, or continue with an unsecure call.

Once a call is placed through RedPhone Beta, it becomes a VoIP?call?meaning that, calls can be placed through Wi-Fi, even when mobile data networks are unavailable. ?If a Wi-Fi network is unavailable, the call will use your wireless data and not your talk minutes.?

Because RedPhone can complete calls over Wi-Fi, users can actually switch their SIM cards and still be able to make secure RedPhone calls. They can even insert SIM cards from phones that have not previously been registered with RedPhone.

When you receive a RedPhone call, the app displays a special accept/reject screen similar to a regular phone call. Once accepted, the app completes some server magic and connects the two speakers. For added security, both caller and receiver will see the same random two-word passphrase on their phones?presumably to verify each person, since either party can ask the other to say the password out loud.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/BNELa2W2Ymg/0,2817,2415410,00.asp

recruiting rankings san onofre paula deen birth control recall nick carter leslie carter aaron carter sister